Vox Luminis

Put the two greatest geniuses from England around 1600 together: the result is something extraordinary. Henry Purcell and William Shakespeare; the former composed The Fairy Queen, a semi-opera based on Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream. According to many, it is Purcell's finest opera. Isaline Claeys' staging is populated by shadow puppets; scenographer Emilie Lauwers and videographer Mário Melo Costa complete the enchantment of this Baroque highlight with fanciful images.

'As if it was made for them,' the press applauded this new Fairy Queen by Vox Luminis. The Belgian ensemble made its name with its interpretations of music from the 16th and 17th centuries from Italy, Germany and England. It already saw its efforts crowned with a Gramophone Award of the Year, an International Classical Music Award, a Diapason d'Or and the Cecilia Prize. Purcell's operas King Arthur and Dido & Aeneas have previously been seen and heard in Eindhoven; now The Fairy Queen. A performance in which nothing is what it seems. A play full of dreams. True enchantments. Double bottoms. Pleasant confusion. Roles are distributed among countless singers. Full of splendid arias, duos, choruses and instrumental interludes. Let yourself float blissfully along to Purcell and Shakespeare.